Imagine you could visualise the conditions that define the capacity of a community - a capacity that will enable a community to engage with and sustain development and growth.

The Community Signature is a visually striking and easy-to-apply tool that has been designed to define the 'capacity' of a community and, in so doing, to describe that community's preparedness for development. It is deployed, initially, to provide a baseline or benchmark across the community to understand the strengths and challenges and for others engaging with the community, to understand the prevailing cultural, environmental, behavioural and resource conditions. Thereafter it is used to monitor changes in community capacity during a programme of interventions to show impact over time.

The Community Signature provides those planning and delivering community development and growth access to a unique set of 'bottom-up' community generated data.

At the same time, the Community Signature gives the people of the community a picture of their community that they can own.

The Community Signature was developed by BusinessLab, a leading UK developer of organisational and community change tools and processes, as a process to build a unique visual picture of a community';s capacity to benefit from the opportunities of regeneration and community development. Its origins lie in the belief that there is significant benefit to be gained through the deployment of tools and processes that help to align strategic interventions with the capacity of a community particularly if the capacity building can be 'managed' by the community itself.

For further information contact signature@businesslab.co.uk